Here, I salute the intrepid road walker, determined to stake out the shoulder as pedestrian turf.

It's not easy, trying to find a public thoroughfare on which a healthy walk can be taken and natural phenomena can be observed and contemplated. On many roads, excessive speed by motorists, replacement of natural habitat by houses and noise from lawn mowers assure disappointment.

One must ponder at length which roads promise both safety and a semblance of scenic reward. Toward that end, I would make these suggestions:

The road you choose must feature wide shoulders. Also, it should be lightly traveled. There should be periods of silence between vehicles. In addition, the road should feature several 20 and 30 mph curves that force vehicles to slow down.

I also would recommend roads that pass through woods as opposed to open spaces. These roads remain shady and cool, even at midday. As an added bonus, animals feel more secure in the shelter and cover they offer than on roads in much more open settings.

Walking along a wooded roadway, you can observe creatures at close range — sometimes crossing the road in front of you, sometimes moving about in the forest right next to the road.

September road walkers will be traveling through seasonal change. Already the sumacs show splashes of scarlet. Already the roads under oak trees lie covered with green acorns hugging their caps. Crickets chirp, and, on warm days, cicadas still whine. Bees extract nectar from thick blooms on Japanese knotweed.

Songbirds peep constantly from both sides of the road. Youngsters now fully grown still are feeding together in flocks. Deer venture out on the shoulder, then leap back in the woods. They look brown now, not red. Whitish fawn spots have started to fade. Out pops a yearling buck, sporting his first-ever antlers. Six inches long, they're the length of his ears. Each is covered by velvet the buck will rub off on a tree trunk in just a few weeks.

A mat of wild grape vines envelopes a guard rail. Soon grouse will home in on its pendulous, deep purple clusters. In a clearing the evening sun paints honey brown, Queen Anne's lace spreads everywhere. Delicate, yet tough as nails, it needs only hardpan to thrive. The odd evening primrose accents its white blossoms with yellow.

A road walker watches the ground, observes the deer tracks, sees the filigree patterns created by insects as they tunnel through leaves of colt's foot sprouting out of a ditch. In that ditch's wet places, trumpet-shaped flowers of jewelweed bloom. Hummingbirds drink from these bright orange vessels before Mexico beckons them south.

Find a road, if you can, that meets road walker specifications. Autumn awaits with its myriad visual pleasures. Step by step, tree by tree, you can walk through this world, moving forward but still feeling rooted; in transition but tuned to the pace of a place where permanence means watching four seasons rotate each year.

Marsi is a freelance writer from Vestal. Email him at rmarsi@stny.rr.com